


All the day

by deepandlovelydark, Tanista



Series: Second Chances [21]
Category: MacGyver (TV 1985)
Genre: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, Childhood, Fluff, Goes darker, Historical References, Humor, Small Towns, Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-02-17 21:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13086189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanista/pseuds/Tanista
Summary: To Ellen, it's home. To Mac, it's a place to be. To Jack, it's somewhere to escape.To Penny Parker, Mission City is somewhere to escape to.





	1. Chapter 1

White chrysanthemums. 

It isn't Penny Parker's first memory; that's a recollection of staring hard at her feet, one with a sock and one without, and being very puzzled by the difference. Not even her first good memory, because there's some dusky faded ones. Snowfall, sweet salty taffy, the soft grey flannel of her nanny's dressing gown- the second one, the only one she'd really liked. Her mother nodding with amused pride, as she lisped out the difference between fiction and non-fiction to a librarian at a quite impossibly tall desk. But none are nearly so lovely as the chrysanthemums. 

Creeping away from her new nanny, who'd been talking to big booming Aunt Betty. (Had there been a wink, from under an outrageous cherry-covered hat? Older Penny is almost sure there was.) She'd trotted off, to go find out everything about Minnesota. Lots smaller than Boston, she remembers thinking. Quieter. Prettier grass. 

"Penelope! Penelope Parker!"

Older Penny feels a little guilty, remembering the young nanny's cry of fright for her lost charge. Young Penny had just looked around for the first hiding place she could find, pushing two chubby hands against an unlocked door. Into wonderland. 

A friendly, creaky floor good for hands as well as feet ( _honey-coloured; Mac's own recipe for varnish_ ). Big black tables and chairs, with lots of cushions ( _antique wrought iron, made by one of Mission City's retired blacksmiths._ ) Paintings of lakes and trees ( _Ellen's watercolours_ ), hung against the wooden walls. A fireplace, a drinks workshop ( _she never gets out of the habit of calling the counter that, not after seeing how much it makes Mac laugh._ )

And a big picture window, through which she can see her nanny looking for her.

In the corner is the biggest bunch of white flowers she's ever seen, all lacey like her dress. They make a safe little nook just her size; she crawls inside to wait. She's very good at waiting, with all the tests her parents make her do. 

Happy laughter wakes her: Penny rubs her eyes and peeks out of the flowers. People all around, dressed in such lovely clothes. A great big cake, topped with a silver bell that rings out whenever someone touches it. A young man, kissing a lady in white. 

"You'll have to sit in the booth, of course," an older woman tells them briskly. "Together, you know."

"Just like always," the young man says, smiling. "Only different now, huh?"

She nods at him, delighted. 

Penny doesn't think they've seen her, until the young man turns his head just so, and plucks her out of the flowers. 

"Now I don't recognise you! And I thought I knew just about everybody in Mission City by sight, so where did you come from?"

"She's probably the Parker child," the lady says, kneeling down next to them. "Betty Parker's great-niece. I expect you'd like a piece of cake, wouldn't you?"

"Cake isn't healthy," Penny tells them. (What silly grown-ups don’t know that?) "So I never have any," she adds, proudly. 

"Why, you brave little dear! All of five years old, and you've never had any cake?"

"Four. I'm four."

"I was gonna say we'd better find her parents, but sheesh," the young man says. "Let's pretend we thought she was a flower girl and spoil her rotten. Or just say she's ours."

"Fancy explaining that to your mother. Married this afternoon, and a four-year old daughter already?"

"We'll just say she's a fast developer."

"I'm not," Penny insists. "I'm awfully slow. Everybody thinks so."

"Worse and worse," the lady says. "I'm sure we don't."

"I'll tell you a secret," the young man says impishly. "In Mission City, today is topsy-turvy day. And do you know what happens on topsy-turvy day?"

"No."

"Everything's backwards and upside-down. So cake's good for you, and you're clever. No matter what anybody else says."

Penny thinks about this, hard. "So my dress is black?"

"Uh-huh."

"And we're sitting on the ceiling?"

"Sure thing."

"And the bride kisses the best man instead of the groom?" somebody asks.

( _It's funny remembering Jack Dalton like that, too young to even wear a moustache yet_ ). 

For his pains, he gets two cushions thrown at him. 


	2. Chapter 2

Much too soon, they have to go back to Boston again. Their boring brick house. Sidewalks. This year she's old enough for school at last, and that's more fun at first. Other kids to play with, and when there's a test they take it together. But she keeps bringing home report cards marked with Bs and Cs, so after a while it isn't. 

"There must be something wrong with her," her father insists to the doctors. "She doesn't read, she doesn't remember. She spells her own name wrong. Don't tell me that's normal."

"I thought I'd have a child, not a-" her mother begins, and always stops there. 

One of her nannies had told her once: "Children should be seen and not heard." In a moment of exasperation, and it hadn't pleased her parents. Next week she had a new one. 

But young Penelope can see the logic of it; if she keeps quiet, she won't say anything stupid and disappointing. It's just she's never been able to take the advice to heart before. Words keep bubbling up inside her, and they have to go somewhere. 

Now, though, she has somewhere. A secret place inside her, where people talk more slowly, and don't mind when she takes a while to explain herself. 

It keeps her safe for the next few years, while she sees the therapists and plays with coloured blocks, and fills in circles with pencils. Some of it is what she remembers, some of it she imagines. Some is what she sees. Her Aunty Betty's great big house, full of friendly ghosts. A pine forest to get lost in, with a red covered bridge. A bakery with every kind of cake ever. A beautiful theatre (she knows Mission City doesn't have one really, but that means she can think up the nicest one she likes). She can wander about, talking about anything she wants to.

One summer morning, eight-year old Penelope wakes up with an idea. 

It takes a while for anyone to notice, but they do eventually. Then there's all the same scolding and teasing and crying as always, but this time it's because she's doing it on purpose. That makes all the difference.

"What about a trip to the Science Museum? You love that," her mother says. 

She does. There's a show about lightning there, and a man who explains electricity. The same speech over and over, twice a day. He never says it wrong. But then, he's clever too. He knows how to improvise when someone asks him a brand-new question. Improvisation was a very long word to memorise, but she wanted to know that one. It's about acting. She thinks she'd be very good at that, she's had lots of practice.

"Just tell us you want to go, and we'll go. Say it out loud, Penelope. Say anything."

She makes the words go out to her secret place, a pretty little coffee shop covered with white flowers, and keeps her mouth firmly shut. 

After a week of silence, her parents try a spanking ("But it's so old-fashioned, Harry." "That's why you'd better do it; we don't want her to get the wrong ideas about permissible male violence.") That makes her cry, but crying doesn't count, and they know it. 

By the end of the second week, her Aunt Betty arrives. (The only time in her life that she ever left Minnesota, Penny thinks.)

"I'm at my wit's end," her father says. "If she was just slow, or just impossible, but both at once?"

"Now then, Penny. You'll say something to your dear old Aunt Betty, won't you?"

"Chrysanthemums," Penelope announces. With her very best diction. Diction is another acting word.

For a little while she's made everyone else speechless, too. 

*************

"I know it's the '70s, but it's- I'm- I'm just an unnatural mother, I know."

Her parents are crying. Penny feels sort of sad for them. 

"You made a mistake," Aunt Betty says, as quietly as she ever does (which is still loud enough that the maid gasps.) "You and Harry weren't ever meant to be parents, you're supposed to work together in that laboratory of yours. Go find the next big atom that's going to blow us all up."

"That's not-" her father starts. 

Aunt Betty waves him silent. "Count yourselves lucky! It isn't everyone who has an obliging old aunt to take in their stray child. Just don't do it again."

They're starting to look hopeful. 

"If only she'd been- brighter," her mother says. "If I could have taught her anything..."

"And that is exactly what I was talking about. You don't put conditions on a child's love."

"Just for the summer, then. At least, at first."

"Write to us every week," her father says to Penny. "If you ever want to come home, we'll come fetch you right away."

"We do love you," her mother says. "Penelope, you know we do. We've worried about you so, we really have."

She says goodbye to them, eventually. At the airport. 

(She knows she won't ever have to come back, by then.)

*************

"I remember you," the barista says, at the Chrysanthemum Cafe. "Penny, wasn't it? Penny Parker?"

Penny nods; and starts to talk as though she'll never stop. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It does seem entirely in keeping with everyone's priorities that I've now written oodles of fic about Mac's coffee shop without his bothering to think about the name once, whereas Penny wanted to know it immediately. 
> 
> Come to think of it, I suspect it embarrasses Mac.


	3. Chapter 3

_Ten Interesting Facts about Mission City_

_1\. People from Mission City are called Missionaries, just like the ones who go to Africa and everything. Only mostly they stay home instead._

_2\. It was founded in 1895, as a logging town. So that’s why there aren’t any trees anymore, except behind the hill at my house._

_3\. There was going to be an electric railroad connecting Mission City to the Twin Cities, but then the company ran out of money, so there wasn’t._

_4\. The government was having a competition for what town they should put a new prison in. Mission City wanted it the most and said we could give them the land for the cheapest, so we got it._

_5\. Mission City’s other industry was bootlegging alcohol down from Canada, during Prohibition. My Aunt Betty Parker was the only girl bootlegger, but she was the best one._

_6\. Also she made her own hooch in a still in the basement. And she still does whenever there’s a party in town._

_7\. The third mayor of Mission City was Stace MacGyver. He was a Scottish immigrant and used to build ships in Glasgow, but he didn’t like the sea so he moved as far away from it as he could._

_8\. The Stuart family were town blacksmiths for years and years. They used to tell people they were related to the Scottish kings, but it probably isn’t true._

_9\. The Chrysanthemum Cafe was started in 1930, the year they started building the prison, so that there would be hot coffee for all the construction workers._

_10\. The prison closed in 1973. Everybody is still mad about this._

“Teacher said I couldn’t put my list on the wall like everybody else’s,” Penny reports tearfully. “Even though I made sure to spell everything right, and it’s all true. Some of the other kids just made stuff up.”

Aunt Betty laughs, in that loud way that means somebody’s in trouble. She doesn’t think it’s her, though. “We’ll see about that!”

They go down to the school, and talk to Principal. Aunty Betty talks about making a donation to the school, to cover the choir’s annual outing. That makes him very happy.

“Oh yes, there’s one more thing. I hear that there’s going to be a school celebration night in honour of the town’s founding. I’d like one of the teachers to read my niece’s essay out loud, I feel it’s a very perceptive piece.”

“Of course!” Principal says heartily. “I’m sure I have every confidence in young Miss Parker.”

But it causes an awful ruckus that night when Miss Saperson, blushing rosily, reads off the list in a very faltering voice. 

Penny can’t understand why. 

After all, everything in it is perfectly true- and isn’t that what matters?


	4. Chapter 4

"I hate this stupid coffee shop. I hate it!"

Wonderingly, Penny goes round the back of the place, down the gently rolling slope to the garden and chicken coops. (She's walking home from school, on account of having forgotten today is Saturday). Little Becky Grahme is sitting on the stone wall, throwing grain at the ducks and scowling. 

"I think it's the nicest coffee shop in the whole world," Penny says loyally. 

"Unca Mac doesn't," Becky says, full of five-year old injustice. "He hates it too. And we came all this way, and I wanted a story from him, and he can't tell me one because he's busy waiting on customers. If he didn't have a coffee shop he could tell me a story."

Ooh. A solo performance! Her very first!

"I'll tell you a story. Any kind of story, what would you like?"

"It's our story," Becky says, still scowling. "With the smartest princess ever, and she makes all kinds of things in her kingdom, like an ice cream machine and a rocket horse and stuff. Unca Mac's the only one who tells it right. You can't."

Audiences are hard. But good performers don't let that distract them. 

"I could tell a different kind of story about her. Like if she went visiting another kingdom, maybe?"

Becky's mouth opens into a little O of surprise. Penny presses her advantage. "I bet she'd just love to talk to another princess. And they can tell each other about things they've discovered, and build something together."

"...maybe."

She doesn't really know how much Mac has taught Becky (Mac can talk about science with anybody), so sticks to stuff that she knows off by heart. How the princesses make a lightning tower, but they're perfectly safe from it as long as they're careful to stay in a special cage... 

"Can it be a glass cage? So it’ll be pretty?"

"No, they have to make it out of conductive materials. Glass isn't conductive. But I guess they could make it out of gold, so it’d be shiny."

Becky nods vigorously. "Okay. You're smart. Mom tried to tell me a story like this once, but she got all the science wrong, and I had to go get the encyclopedia and show her. Then she got mad."

(It's the first time in Penny Parker's life that anyone has ever called her smart. Twenty years later, when she's a successful Hollywood actress with write-ups in magazines and fans galore, it's still one of her most satisfying performance memories.)

“You know what else would work? You could try silver. That’s even more conductive than gold, and reflective enough that you can make mirrors out of it.” 

It’s Mac, still brushing cookie crumbs off his jeans. “I’m sorry I’ve missed this. Ellen finally got herself out of bed- anyway, I’m on parole now. Nice to hear someone else in Mission City talking science.”

Becky brightens up, runs over to hug him. “Hiya! Penny was telling me a story, and I thought it’d be awful. But it wasn’t.”

He grins. “D’you mind a co-star?”

“Glad to!”

The two of them finish the story together, bouncing ideas back and forth, while Becky listens enraptured. 


	5. Chapter 5

“Are you and Ellen really getting a divorce?” Penny asks Mac, while they’re out picking blueberries. Everybody else in town is kind of shocked, but she isn’t. Lots of Hollywood people do it all the time. 

“Mmm,” Mac says, wiping juice off his mouth. “Probably.”

He doesn't look very happy to be talking about it. “You haven’t put any berries in your bucket the whole time. Are you just going to eat every one you find?”

“Might as well. Ellen’s on some stupid diet that says she can’t eat any fruit. But gets to have steak and all the fresh eggs…I don’t know why she’s even doing it.”

“Because she’s in showbiz,” Penny says happily. “The Stillman diet, I’m going to go on it too. As soon as blueberry season’s over.” 

Mac snorts. “Newsreader for local broadcast isn’t exactly showbiz. I hate that she’s having to dig me out of a hole, but...well, if we lose the shop we’re both done for. I guess she feels like she owes me that much, ‘fore she leaves.”

“That’s good. It’d be awful if you went out of business.”

“I dream about it sometimes,” he says, not looking at her. “That maybe one day I’ll just flip the sign to closed and leave the place to rot. Start hiking south. Live off the land, just disappear.”

“Without any friends?”

“Penny, tell you the truth I’m feeling kind of burnt out on companionship right now.”

“But you’re here picking blueberries with me.”

“Yeah, well,” he says with amusement. “I couldn’t let you go out into the woods by yourself, could I? Suppose a bear came and ate you up, that’d be on my conscience.”

“What’ll you do if we see a bear?”

“Oh, walk away. Slowly. You don’t want to rile them up.”

Penny shivers. “No, I guess not! But I thought you’d do something wacky. Like invent a contraption. Or a distraction.”

“Sometimes, Penny...sometimes simple is best.”

He’s staring down a deer trail, sort of lost and longing. Like he has it in mind to just start walking right now, and never come back. 

Penny takes him by the arm. “Mac? It’s getting dark. Maybe we’d better go home.”

“Oh! Sorry.”

She’s almost sorry she’s done it. He sounds regretful. 

But maybe a little grateful, too. 

*******************

Ellen’s the only professional performer in Mission City, so Penny’s been hanging out with her a lot lately. Learning a lot of useful stuff that an actress needs to know, like how to apply makeup (Aunt Betty boasts that she’s never worn it in her life). How to smile like you mean it, even when you don’t. And also diets. 

Of course, listening to her also means hearing a lot of harangues, but Penny knows that’s part of showbiz too. 

“Driving out at five in the morning, in sub-zero temperatures- is there any vehicle less suited to Minnesota’s climate than a jeep, I ask you?” Ellen hisses, as she mixes herself a whiskey-drenched coffee. “Penny, television is a miserable experience. Don’t ever do this to yourself. Stick to running your own show.”

That’s something Ellen keeps saying; that she ought to just stay home, and enjoy the community theatre. Turned out Mission City did have one after all. It just hadn’t been used since 1936. 

Which is a wonderful opportunity for her! With Aunt Betty’s money for financial backing, she’s cleaned up the place and has been teaching herself theatricals from the ground up. Starting with acting (naturally), but also casting, script rewrites, box office, even stage carpentry- though with her clumsiness, that one is mostly experience in learning how to delegate. Making a lot of mistakes along the way, but she’s learning. Slowly. Last year they did a by-the-book “Romeo and Juliet”, and nobody liked it; this year they’re doing a performance of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” rewritten for midwinter, with local humour and hockey jokes, and that’s going down a lot better in dress rehearsals. Improvising quips is a lot of fun. 

(One of these days she’s going to go to Hollywood; but not until she’s tried everything she can here. Running a whole theatre by herself is a pretty unique opportunity for someone still in high school, and probably not one she’ll get again.)

Ellen’s still complaining, but she’s winding down. “...of course I’d rather have just stayed in makeup, but the sooner I can make enough money to get Mac out of this, the better. I’m not staying any longer than I need to, I can promise you that.”

“Oh, don’t go! I watch you every day,” Penny says. (She'd like to say it's because she likes Ellen- and she does- but mostly, it's just instructive seeing how many ways a newscaster can flub her job.)

“Then you’re probably the only one.”

She’s wrong about that, as it happens. Everyone in Mission City watches the news these days, willing her on as she struggles through yet another broadcast. Hoping for the best, of course, but unwilling to miss it should the worst happen.

As they’re all doing, that cold February night. When just as Ellen’s finishing up, for once with a real and proper smile, someone slips a paper onto her desk.

“We’re sorry to report the death of Karen Carpenter, who died at hospital today of cardiac arrest. Aged thirty-two, one half of the popular singing- duo...”

Ellen starts to cry. On air. 

The town’s very sympathetic after her unceremonious firing. Even Mac’s distracted from his malaise, by the task of cheering her up. Penny’s as sweet about it as she knows how to be. 

But she knows no real performer would slip up like that, however sad she was. The Penny who goes to Hollywood needs to know how to put herself aside, to play whatever the part asks. How to be nice or nasty on demand, whatever she’s really feeling.

That might take a while to learn. But then, she’s not in any hurry. 

(And she finally takes Aunt Betty’s advice, and throws out all her diet books.)


	6. Chapter 6

Penny falls in love with Jacques Leroux at first sight. Fetching and exotic and so much better than the other candidates for the Phantom- far better than any actor she’s ever seen in Mission City, in fact- that he inevitably wins the part. Also her heart. 

Then she falls right out of love again, because he doesn’t take her direction very well or indeed at all. Even if she’s only a provincial with a couple of years of community college to back her up, she’s still the producer here. Only he doesn’t seem to understand that. 

Then she falls in love with him again, because he does know so much about real acting, Hollywood and New York and so forth, and is happy to talk about it, and that’s very exciting.

Then she notices how good he is at casual, thoughtless lying, gets the idea that he’s just making it all up, and falls right back out of love again. 

It keeps going back and forth like that, for several months, and just to confuse things he has to up and leave whenever she’s finally got her feelings clear, so eventually she books the nicest table at the Gray Goose for them. The balcony seat, where people get engaged sometimes. Or break up dramatically. 

“Only I don’t want you to kiss me anymore, unless you like me,” Penny says over the fish. “I mean, unless we’re on stage. Then it’d be all right.”

“Alas, my sweet Miss Parker. I must beg your pardon, for so toying with your heart...but verily I must confess, mine is given over to another. A devastating blonde, of attitude sympathetic and yet so cold towards me-”

“Oh! So Jack was right, and you’re really in love with Mac.”

Jacques is sort of the opposite of normal people; he stops being dramatic when he’s surprised. (He always, always complains about her ad-libs, even the funniest.) So when he suddenly abandons tragic gesticulations, and spends five minutes drinking wine and just waiting for her to say something else, she knows she’s right. 

“I think that’s awfully sweet. Mac’s nice, and so are you.”

He gives her a curious look from under his long (artificial) eyelashes, and Penny almost falls in love with him again. But manages not to. 

“Penny, I’ll tell you the truth. If you think you can bring yourself not to blab it, that is.”

“Sure I can!” Maybe she’s a little forgetful sometimes, but that doesn’t mean she’s rude. 

“I dream of sweeping that man off his feet. I dream-” and now he’s getting theatrical again- “I dream of taking him away from this wretched little town- theatre not included, of course- and taking him to live out his life somewhere he’ll be properly appreciated. But I admit, I’m having a little difficulty working out how to persuade him. He’s stubbornly self-reliant.”

“Ooh. You want to court him, only you don’t know how?”

He indulges in a long, drawn-out sigh. “Shall we agree I don’t? If only to pass the time until dessert.”

“The easiest way to get on his good side,” Penny explains helpfully, “is to be nice to Becky. Mac always likes people who are nice to Becky.”

“That...unfortunately, won’t work. She doesn’t like me, I’ve no idea why, but I suspect just buying one of her quilts won’t do the trick.”

“That’s harder.” Becky Grahme’s sort of a puzzle to the whole town; she can be very friendly sometimes, but then she’s always reading. The one time anyone let her captain a game of capture-the-flag, the other players all got squelched, and people said it wasn’t really fair even though she’d played by the rules. (Nobody had thought of putting in a rule about kites. Or washing machines. Or borrowing the municipal backhoe.) “The easiest way to make Becky happy is to do nice things for Mac.”

“Rather bringing us back to the original problem, I believe.”

Penny concentrates. “She likes...complicated things. A really, really complicated way of being nice to Mac. And you know what else, he likes stories. About science and faraway places, he used to love telling her stories like that. I think he still does.”

“In sort, I should woo my beloved by telling him implausibly exciting travelogues and inventing a needlessly convoluted plan? Have I muddled this up with my day job?”

“What is your day job, anyway?” She’s always been curious. 

“Bloodletting,” Jacques says. “It’s come back into style, you know. With leeches.”

That doesn’t sound any more sensible than the other explanations she’s heard.

But then, actors are supposed to have funny lives.


	7. Chapter 7

_Dear Aunt Betty,_

_oh, I wish you’d been here to see the fun we’re having in Los Angeles! (Though I suppose you’ll know about it anyway). The choir coming twelfth in the singing competition isn’t so bad really, considering how many there were, and anyway they were allowed to sing a song for the tv broadcast, which was the important part. I’ve finally been on a real set, and I’ve had all sorts of conversations with actresses, and agents and things..._

_...and then there was a mixup about the seats on the flight home, because they’d been overbooked and there was only one left- and the next flight was for after Christmas. Mac wouldn’t go without Becky, and she wouldn’t go without him, and Jacques said he wasn’t even going back to Minnesota just yet. And I was the one with all the money, so I had to stay._

_I mean, the two of them were being perfectly ridiculous. Talking about what sort of tent they ought to get, and whether they should spend the week volunteering at a homeless shelter so they’d have somewhere to go for Christmas dinner- how awful is that? I absolutely had to insist, that since it was my fault that their holiday plans had fallen through, I’d pay for the hotel rooms and everything. Though it wasn’t, for once! But I’m getting to that._

_They still weren’t listening, though, until I was practically crying saying that it’d ruin my Christmas if I’d spoilt theirs (I mean, I was crying already, but I mean for real and not just stagey). So eventually I got them to agree, only the hotel was full up, so we had to move. To a much nicer one. (I’d booked top-floor rooms in advance, you see. Only I wish I hadn’t, because I’d forgot Mac’s afraid of heights- but he said it was all right, as long as he was careful about not looking down from the window. I think Becky likes the view though.)_

_...and us girls just couldn’t keep up with them! Of course, Jacques knows all about Los Angeles, which is just so, so big- I mean, I have a good sort of idea what the Hollywood part of it is like, but there’s about ten different cities stacked on top of that, and I think Mac wanted to go to every single one. Considering how hard he works, I’d have thought that some rest would be good for him. But he didn’t think so. Neither did Jacques._

_So while they were getting up at six in the morning to go exploring and everything, we slept in and I took Becky out for sunbathing and shopping and relaxation sort of things. She works awfully hard, studying and so forth- trying to get a scholarship to Western Tech isn’t easy. But Mac and I ganged up on her and took away all her sewing stuff, and everything, so she’d have to have a nice long rest. I think after the first day she started enjoying herself. Though we couldn’t exactly stop her reading. She would keep buying all these books._

_And she was so silly about missing Christmas with Jack Dalton. I mean, I guess he’s funny and eveything, but- well, he always steals some of the bottles whenever he shows up at one of my parties, and after all he's only a taxi driver. And he's been in prison- I do remember what you always told me, that a good criminal should never get caught. He's an awfully bad one._

_I mean, why would you want the town drunk when someone as exciting as Jacques is around? Because that was the plan, really; I'd pretend to muddle everything up so that Mac could have a lovely warm Christmas with Jacques. And it worked. And I was going to tell Becky all about how clever we'd been, but she seemed so sad I didn't know how to say it._

_But Mac and Jacques are happy. I think it's going to do them both a world of good..._


	8. Chapter 8

Everyone's leaving town. Mac and Jacques, in April. Ralph Jerico's been brought up on charges, but nobody really thinks he had anything to do with it: way too theatrical. Ellen's gone, no one knows where (the favourite rumour is that she and Mac and Jacques ran off together, in a wild threesome). Jack Dalton's finally prepping for his much-delayed departure.

Becky's going with him. In fact, every last one of her classmates is leaving Mission City, to look for work in the Twin Cities or even further south. Moving on to places with a future.

Like the end of an era; and while Penny's keen to go herself, she finds it awfully sad.

"I mean, I love this beautiful old cafe," she says. "I'd hate to think of it just standing here, all lonely..."

"You're welcome to it," Becky says with a smile. "I mean, maybe it's been home for a few years, but I'm not gonna miss it. Especially now my uncle's gone."

"Don't give up hope. I think the ghosts would have told me, if he'd died," Penny offers helpfully. "And they haven't."

Becky shudders. "Geez. Even if he was a ghost, I'd hope he could find something more fun to do than haunt Mission City. It'd be his idea of hell. Or purgatory, at the very least!"

She looks very serious for a moment, then starts to giggle, much to Penny's relief. "No, I don't think he's dead. I'm sure I'll see him again one of these days. Not that I'd say that to just anyone, you understand," she adds quickly. "It's kinda been our secret."

"Well when you do, will you give him this?" Penny asks, passing her a card along with the cheque. (Her confession. Something she always meant to say to Mac himself, one day, but she's not sure when she'll have the chance.)

"Oh, sure."

But instead of putting it safely away, Becky just starts reading it. Right there. Which wasn't the idea at all.

Penny's always taken a keen interest in others' reactions- the better to imitate them in the theatre- and she finds Becky's tightly-compressed lips and the slight hitch in her breath puzzling. (Could she have read the whole thing that quickly? Of course she could, it's Becky.)

"Uh, I really only meant-"

Becky takes a deep breath, slips the card back into the envelope. "Sorry, habit. But it explains a lot."

Now she's blinking away tears in her eyes. What's going on?

"Becky, are you okay? Did I do something wrong?"

"Well, yes and no. I mean, I understand why you did it. I always did think the rabbits were cute, even if they ruin the gardens. Unc taught me how to track game, but he never could get me to go hunting with him; the thought of killing anything makes my stomach turn even now. It's just that--" She stops, swallows. Tears run down her cheek.

Oh, this isn't good. Not good at all. This should be a happy ending, not a sad one. What can she do to fix it?

She reaches over, touches Becky. "I meant well, really I did," she says earnestly. "You gotta believe me."

"Oh, I know you did, Penny. That's one of the things Unc and I like about you. You may be scatterbrained and accident-prone, but your heart's always in the right place. Don't ever change, okay?"

"Okay, I won't. But can you at least tell me why you're so sad? I don't like the thought of you leaving like this, in tears."

Becky smiles sadly, shrugs. "Sure. Why not? Might as well unburden myself of everything before I go. But let's do this properly."

So together they settle into one of the booths, mugs of hot chocolate in hand.

Becky takes a sip, stares out the window. "Unc didn't have to take me in, I know that. Divorced, no college degree, only this old place as a source of income. Not a great way to bring up a kid like me by himself. And then he got slapped with the last of that stupid lawsuit, and things just got worse from there."

Penny drinks her chocolate and listens, wide-eyed. (She knows they had it rough for a while, but not that rough.)

"That summer- a whole summer I had to watch him, trying so hard to pretend he was all right so I wouldn't be scared. Putting the whole weight on his shoulders, without letting me share the load. As though we weren’t having enough trouble already. Unc was hoping the rabbit snares would provide us with protein, but when they were all broken we had to depend solely on what was left in the garden and donated food from the church. An awful lot of white bread." She grimaces.

"Anyway, the last straw happened just before school started. One last plate of French toast, and all for me. By that time I knew Unc was practically starving himself just so I could eat, and felt awful knowing I was the reason he was suffering. So I staged a temper tantrum, hoping to trick him into eating."

Penny frowns, remembering how she'd pretended to be mute so her parents would send her to live with Aunt Betty. "Did it work?"

"Yeah, just not the way I was expecting. You remember how much he hated guns before that?" Penny nods. "Well, that incident kinda forced him to change his mind about that, and I guess some other things too. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so keen to run off with that guy, you know? I can't help thinking it's all my fault, somehow."

Penny pats her hand sympathetically. "Oh Becky. You shouldn't feel responsible, not at all. It's not your fault; it's mine, that's why I'm giving Mac the money. I just felt so awful after what happened in April and the nasty things that were said about him and wanted to make up for everything, honest."

Becky just stares at her for a while in silence, causing Penny to worry. Did she say something wrong again?

Finally she shakes her head. "Penny, like I said earlier, your heart's always in the right place. Even if you have no idea of the consequences."

"Sorry for getting you upset like that. I didn't mean to, honest."

"Hey, it's okay. Feels good to get it off my chest, you know?" Becky checks her watch. "Whoops, look at the time. Jack's waiting for me at the airfield and I gotta get to the bank." She takes a final sip, gathers their dishes.

After cleaning them and putting them away she takes a final long look around. There's a funny wistful look on her face, kinda like Mac's when he had an idea. "Huh, so this is it. Home is where the heart is, right?"

"I guess so."

"Well, my heart's not here anymore. But I see yours is, so whatever you decide to do with it is fine with me. Good luck in your career, Penny. Take care."

"You too, Becky. See you when I get to Hollywood?"

"Yeah. Remember me and Unc when you get your first big award."

They share a hug. She feels so much better now.

With a grin Becky hands over the keys, hoists her game bag and shuts the cafe door for the last time.

It's all hers now. Penny looks around and closes her eyes, remembering the past. For a moment it feels like the cafe's still there, and so's she, while the future goes by outside without touching them.

Sort of like a ghost, herself.


	9. Chapter 9

“People,” Aunt Betty always used to say. “People are basically stupid.”

It was her all-purpose response whenever Penny asked her why people did things this way instead of that way, or what the fun was in watching football, or why they couldn’t just give away lots of money to all the people in town who needed it. 

“Because people are basically stupid, Penny. They think they’d be a lot happier if you gave them a fortune, but not one in a hundred would know how to use it. Just look at those stories about lottery winners! Divorces, misery, all sorts of nonsense. No, it’s better to earn it with your own two hands.”

“I guess I must be pretty stupid too,” Penny had said once. “Cos I think I’d agree with them.”

Aunt Betty had just smiled. “And that’s why your great-aunt is here to take care of you, honey.”

But she’s been dead for a year now (though Penny still writes her letters) and...well, she’s been thinking about this a lot, since Becky had left. 

Only it doesn’t seem really fair that her stupidity never makes any difference to how nice her life is. While if people like Mac or Becky aren’t clever, they get so much heartache for it. 

She’s thinking about her Aunt Betty more than usual today, because she’s trespassing. The still was always strictly off-limits, but some of the older Missionaries have been joking about whether she won’t whip up one more batch of the good stuff, before she leaves. And one of the books at the cafe had listed everything about how to brew alcohol at home. All she has to do is follow the instructions. Just like stage direction. 

Only, only...maybe she’s just getting what she deserves, for venturing in on ghostly territory. 

Because there’s something else Mac had told her, in one of his chats. How to tell the difference between lead and iron pipes. And after she’d cleaned off the antiquated piping to find a soft silvery-white metal, that won’t attract a magnet, it looks awfully like this whole still’s made of lead. 

Penny doesn’t know very much about lead. But she does know it’s toxic. 

She sits down on the cellar stairs, scrubbing brush in hand, and has a good long think. Maybe the hardest she’s ever had in her life. About this still, that people have been drinking from for years and years. About her uncle Virgil, Aunt Betty’s illegitimate son, who she never knew because he died young, and he had a lot of health problems and was sort of slow. Her aunt would never talk about him except when she was very drunk; and she always cried when she did. How kind and gentle and sweet he was. 

She thinks about Becky, and how she’d been forgiven for trying to do right, even though she's done a lot of things that hadn’t helped anybody at all. Except for the rabbits. 

And she thinks a lot about this town she loves so much, like maybe nobody else ever has. 

*************

“I’m not sure I’m following this,” the nice lady at the Phoenix Foundation says. 

“All my family’s money was made by making people alcohol,” Penny explains, again (people seem to be needing a lot of explanations today). “But it turns out that the alcohol was full of lead, and we probably poisoned a lot of people, and nobody ever knew. So I want to give away all my money in trust, for Mission City. Cos they’re the people who deserve to have it. You can do charitable trusts, right? My lawyer’s told me about those.”

“Um...certainly. But- I understand you’re concerned, but nobody would expect you to give away all of it, you know.” (The nice lady isn’t a local, but she’s been in town long enough to have heard about Penny’s scatter-brained reputation.)

“Oh, I know. But I want to. Besides, I’ve already got more than I should have, anyway- that big house, and a coffee shop, and a salary as manager for the community theatre. I fixed that up first, before I did anything else.” It probably isn’t quite right she did that, but Aunt Betty would like it. Besides, she’s going to work hard at that job. 

It’s harder to convince them then she’d thought it would be; the Phoenix Foundation people think she’s crazy, and Newberry isn’t happy at all. But she doesn’t have the Parker blood for nothing; and she holds out stubbornly until they fix it the way she wants. 

Just her. And a cafe. 

Maybe it’s love, for her favourite place in the whole world. Maybe it’s a kind of penance, to see what she put Becky and Mac through. Maybe it’s a reason to stay on until she can find out whether her fortune will help Mission City any. To see if Aunt Betty was wrong and money really can help people, if you apply it right.

Maybe she just needs to stay until somebody she trusts comes along to take over the cafe. Somebody else who’ll love this old place the way she does. She’ll go to Hollywood, when that happens; but until then she’ll stay here, and try not to fumble people’s drink orders. And count her pennies. 

Penny lets herself have one indulgence, though. 

The first day the cafe’s open for business again (full of curious and more than grateful locals), she just stuffs the place full of white chrysanthemums.


End file.
